demand real solutions to save lives

San Francisco, Calif –­– The undersigned members of the San Francisco Vision Zero Coalition release the following statement:

Last week, when President Trump’s Administration proposed a rollback of national fuel economy standards, it claimed that keeping more polluting cars on the roads would save lives. As members of the San Francisco Vision Zero Coalition, we can’t let that stand. We work hard to ensure that San Francisco reaches the important goal of Vision Zero — the elimination of traffic deaths and serious injuries on our streets.

If the President really wants to save lives on the nation’s roads, he could take action on any (or all) of the following proven solutions. He could:

Champion public transportation, to cut pollution, congestion, and crashes while giving people more equitable access to good jobs and opportunity.

Establish national street design standards that prioritize the needs of seniors, disabled people, and youth.

Fund the construction of sidewalks, bike lanes, and paths that allow safe and pleasant walking and bicycling. That would save lives and also prolong them, by decreasing rates of obesity and diabetes.

Or he could make wild claims about low fuel standards saving lives. But we know those claims are false.

Lower fuel standards mean more pollution; this will cause more asthma, more heart disease, more illness and deaths now. Longer term, the pollution will worsen climate change and make the world a more dangerous and deadly place.

Lower fuel standards also mean more low-efficiency vehicles like SUVs on the roads; these heavy vehicles are much more dangerous to people walking and biking than smaller, fuel-efficient cars.

There are plenty of proven solutions that San Francisco and the 30-plus US cities that have adopted Vision Zero are already implementing to keep people safe. Lowering fuel efficiency is not one of them. It harms the very people at risk of traffic violence while benefiting oil companies and auto manufacturers. President Trump pretends to care about the safety of people on our streets, when he’s really looking out for the interests of car companies and their profits.

On behalf of the 40,000 people killed in traffic crashes each year in the US, we call out the President’s double-speak and demand real action.

The San Francisco Vision Zero Coalition is a group of over 35 community organizations whose mission is to ensure the swift and equitable implementation of Vision Zero in San Francisco by 2024. More information at: WalkSF.org/Take-Action/Vision-Zero/#VZCoalition

Vision Zero SF – Zero traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2024. No loss of life on city roadways is acceptable when serious and fatal traffic crashes can be prevented. Vision Zero assumes that humans will make mistakes and designs the transportation system so those mistakes aren’t severe or fatal.